The first time I heard "Welcome to the Black Parade," the first single off of My Chemical Romance's new record, The Black Parade, I was certainly, for lack of eloquence, fucking confused. The intro was absurdly epic, a throwback to the simple "rock" music of the 70's, before kicking into the type of upbeat punk rock that My Chemical Romance has come to be known for. After hearing this, I knew The Black Parade was going to be something completely different. I had no idea what to expect from this record, and I liked that feeling.
The Black Parade opens with "The End", an intro of sorts; it begins with a simple acoustic guitar. Not long after, a piano accompanies the guitar, and halfway through, the song explodes into a huge ballad of an opening track. The song leads directly into "Dead!," featuring one of the most Cheap Trick-esque guitar solo's I've ever heard outside of, well, a Cheap Trick record. Already the album is probably not what most diehard My Chemical Romance fans have come to expect at this point. It's still bouncy, but has a decidedly different feel than anything the band has recorded before.
The previously mentioned "Welcome to the Black Parade" along with "House of Wolves" show the band's ability to write a killer rock song. Not post-hardcore, not nu-emo, not pop-punk, just a straight, unadulterated, ROCK SONG. Guitarist Ray Toro has been doing serious worshipping at the altar of Brian May, and damned if it hasn't seriously paid off on The Black Parade. The guitar work and the solo's on this record are a serious cut above anything from the band's last record, some of those songs rife with solos in their own right.
"Mama" and "Teenagers" are probably two of the oddest songs that My Chemical Romance has ever written. The former sounds simultaneously like World Inferno/Friendship Society, and Tom Waits, invoking equal parts of each, (Check out Gerard's uncanny likeness to Mr. Waits at 1:46 singing "I should have been a better son), while retaining a sound completely theirs in the midst of it. "Teenagers" is bouncy as can be, a fun little ditty about social control, and umm...shooting the kids at school for fucking with you. Seriously.
The Black Parade doesn't falter often, but when it does, you'll want to reach for the "skip track" button on your iTunes. "This is How I Disappear" sounds like a rejected track from one of the last few Alkaline Trio records, while "The Sharpest Lives" does little to sound like much more than a watered down late-era A.F.I.. "I Don't Love You" does seem to drag on. After you're two minutes down, you realize you're only halfway through, and you'd rather just get to the next track anyway.
The words "adventurous" and "ambitious" seem to get thrown around so much anymore that they really don't have much meaning anyway, but those words honestly are quite appropriate to describe The Black Parade. My Chemical Romance have put so much of themselves into creating this record, that I honestly wonder if they can even attempt to make a record this big again.
